A6 Rebooted

[Natalie Severn]

So only TWO other countries TRUST LCN DNA tests

re Weir---continued:
He listed ten points of concern raised by defence experts, and the first of these was ‚That LCN has only been adopted for evidential purposes in two other countries in the world, the Netherlands and New Zealand.‛

[Limehouse]

Hi Norma

Yes - if scientists cannot agree on the value of this LCN method it is very disturbing that it is being used to endorse the conviction (and I suppose other convictions).

I have a real problem with this method because it seems that scientists cannot even agree over whether it is possible to tell the source of the DNA (eg whether it is sweat or skin or semen etc). The conclusions of the report on the knicker fragment seem to suggest they could attribute some DNA (semen) to Gregsten and some DSNA (semen) to Hanratty but all of the independent information I have read insists that you cannot not tell from a DNA profile that the substance it is taken from is semen.

[Graham]

Couple of Things...

1] I wonder if it's occurred to anyone that JH, after killing Gregsten and raping and shooting Valerie, may well have been in a state of shock and a bag of nerves, hence his grinding of the gears and erratic driving as he left the scene in the Morris.

The other day some arse stepped off the pavement in front of me without looking, and after an emergency stop and a few choice words I too was in a right state and grinding the gears.

Just a thought.

2] Julie, you mentioned someone in Gregsten's family actually writing to the RRL about his affair with Valerie. I can't find a reference to this. From what Woffinden says the senior people at the RRL were only too well aware of what was going on, and being Government-salaried, strait-laced stuffed-shirts were bent on putting an end to it. I ask because such a letter would suggest that there was a desire on the part of someone in Gregsten's family to put an end to the affair.

Graham

[Hatchett]

Hello Graham,

I have that same problem about the letter. Norma has mentioned that before, but I cannot recall anything about a letter or a complaint from Gregsten's family.

I too would be obliged if you could point that out Norma.

Thanks.

[jimarilyn]

I have seen some people post here suggesting that the killer just pretended to feign ignorance over the basic driving of a Morris. That is nonsense as the killer according to Valerie Storie thought that she was dead. Why would one feign the ignorance of starting a Morris and perform crunching gears for the benefit of what would, to the killer, be a dead audience?

Exactly, Derrick. I've always thought the same thing. The gunman obviously [according to Valerie's testimony] knew very little about cars. He didn't even know how to start the engine ! There would have been much crunching of gears I reckon over the the following couple of hours or so as he tried to familiarise himself with the workings of a humble Morris Minor.

[jimarilyn]

Hi Derrick,

Surely, the point is obvious. Whether you use the word great, as I did, or the word expert as his brother did, Hanratty was not a great or an expert driver in the view of his brother.

Just a minor point here, Hatchett. Michael never used the word 'expert' in describing his brother's driving skills. He said 'very good'. There's not a big deal of difference between 'great' and 'very good' I'd say.

[caz]

You don't exactly back things up with source material Jen,---you take the easy route ,as does Caz, by denouncing everything we say from 'on high'-and quoting the law and the forensic boys and girls.

What a cheek! You take the easy route, Nats, by failing to deal with the extremely simple question I keep asking, which is what possible grounds there can ever be for another appeal in this case. None of you can even keep your arguments consistent regarding what exactly is wrong with the DNA findings and how you intend to demonstrate it. The DNA beats the Rhyl 'alibi' into a sticky pulp in terms of hard evidence, so what apart from wishful thinking and prejudice convinces you that it's the other way round? If an instinctive distrust of forensic science and anyone in authority tells you the DNA cannot be relied on, a touching faith in your Rhyl witnesses must be telling you they were infallible.

You can't have it both ways Caz.

I think you'll find I can have it any way I like, Nats. You are the one who wants the situation to change; I'm happy with it as it stands. Hanratty was taken out of society because he was believed to be a danger to it.

I did offer an alternative to Hanratty planting the gun himself (ie France doing it to disconnect himself, his home and his family from the man he knew or suspected had committed this mother of all crimes) but you ignored it, and didn't really deal with why anyone aiming to incriminate an innocent Hanratty would not have put the gun in a much more obviously damning place, where it would quickly be linked directly with him and identify him as a suspect if he hadn't been already. Apart from the risk of going out with the thing, transporting it onto a bus and being seen hiding it, what guarantee was there that even if it was found quickly it would be connected to the man being framed? The police had to have Hanratty as a suspect before they could have connected the murder weapon to him. Bit of a pointless gamble really, with one if not the most important component of the crime.

Holding up a couple in a car was not Hanratty's style at all. He was a man who crept into people's houses when they were out. He stole cars when their owners were absent. He was not a confrontational sort of person.

Er, maybe that explains precisely why such a pig's ear was made of the whole thing. It looked like a first effort and was evidently the last of its kind as well. What sort of idiot would have hired a trigger-happy twit like that to scare a couple of lovebirds into separating? And how on earth was a stranger in the night meant to have the desired effect on them, with or without a lethal weapon?

There's something about this case that causes otherwise smart people to see logic where there is none and real possibility in the wildest speculation. They may not like or agree with the evidence for Hanratty being the trigger-happy twit, but in its place they seem to think it's quite acceptable to put baseless fantasies, accusing goodness knows who of goodness knows what, without even a glimmer of evidential support, as if justice could possibly be better served that way. It's hypocritical nonsense.

...especially as MG's sexual intercourse of 22/08/61 with VS had vanished,while the other evidence of sexual intercourse that had taken place with the rapist was alleged to have remained...

Why do you keep saying this, Nats? They claimed that three DNA profiles were obtained including VS's, and that no inconsistencies were found with Hanratty raping VS just like she said he did, and with MG having previously made love to her. You can't wish away the profile attributed to MG; the best you can do is to suggest that MG's was absent, and attribute this profile instead to A.N Other, while blaming Hanratty's profile on a professional who is meant to have scraped furiously at the man's trousers and managed to transfer enough semen by mistake to the knicker fragment to show up 40 years later! Isn't that directly undermining your argument that the quantity of DNA was too small to analyse? You are the one who wants them to have analysed a far smaller quantity of Hanratty's semen than would have been present after a full ejaculation during the act of rape! You are not making any sense.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

Its strange, isn't it, that JH's supporters accept without question Valerie's description of when the car was driven away, at a time when she was traumatised, semi-conscious and suffering from shock. Yet when it comes to the ID parade, her word is doubted, and she is described as confused or mistaken, unable to make up her mind, or indeed coached by Acott.

Graham

[Hatchett]

Hi,

You are right Graham, the cranking of the gears could just have been the haste that the killer and rapist made to ensure his get away. It was an unreal terrfying experiance. And like you say the killing of what he believed to have been two people before raping one he would later shoot would have unhinged anyone.

You see looking at what happened, it had to have been a senseless un prepared killing. Any killing or bullying or harassment would have had to have been thought out.

The actions of the killer and rapist were uncontrolled, unorganised, and basically pointless until the murder of Gregston.

This of course leaves an unpleasant disturbing thought in all of our minds, but I think the Hanratty killing, raping and attemped murder was just that, pointless because of a situation that had not been thought out and had gotten out of hand.

It was a spur of the moment point of madness that Hanratty did not refuse.

Wrong place at the wrong time for a man with an ego problem who starts something that he has no idea of how to finish.

Best wishes.

[Natalie Severn]

1] I wonder if it's occurred to anyone that JH, after killing Gregsten and raping and shooting Valerie, may well have been in a state of shock and a bag of nerves, hence his grinding of the gears and erratic driving as he left the scene in the Morris.

The other day some arse stepped off the pavement in front of me without looking, and after an emergency stop and a few choice words I too was in a right state and grinding the gears.

Hello Graham,
I find it a bit provocative the way you begin your post .....just a thought.You intend, I suppose ,to say,"look,we are on the side of the law here and we can ignore anything you say about say the Matthews report or Foot's or Woffinden's work.Anyway,maybe I am wrong-and I apologise if so.
Having never encountered a case which relied on so many shady characters as witnesses for the prosecution and one sole witness re identification [-who didn't really see the man] -for the account of what took place,I was horrified that a man was hanged for the crime---especially as James Hanratty's alibis in both Liverpool[Mrs Dinwoody]and Rhyl [Mrs Jones/Mrs Walker/Mrs Vincent /Mrs Davies/Mr Dutton and Mr Larman et al were not criminals like those the prosecution had relied on.
I have studied the Hawser report quite carefully [and no doubt you have too] and it is the most slippery piece of argument I have ever read ---just about as full of holes and inconsistencies as the trial itself was and a masterpiece of evasion,ignoring almost every anomaly and inconsistency Judge Gorman pointed out to the jury in his summing up.
Mr Whitaker in 2002 ,takes up the cudgel play vigorously upholding his 'amazing findings' and the lurid story the DNA told him as it appeared to him on the 43 year old piece of knicker cloth.Only thing is the rest of the world wants nothing whatever to do with Mr Whitaker's LCN DNA tests.Too dodgy by half they think, too susceptible to contamination and too controversial for evidential purposes .Still Mr Whitaker must be comforted by the Netherlands and New Zealand who like ourselves have adopted it for evidential purposes .
Like everything else in the case,there is still nothing straight forward , nothing that makes sense ,nothing above criticism, nothing that isn't controversial.

re your point about the gears:Valerie first of all had to demonstrate how to drive the car.Then a second time,show him how to change gear,then a third time reinforce her driving lesson over both the gears and the lights.She never mentions him as being anything other than coolly murderous in the end.Which is exactly how I picture the gunman after the tragic skirmish with Gregsten.

[Derrick]

Its strange, isn't it, that JH's supporters accept without question Valerie's description of when the car was driven away, at a time when she was traumatised, semi-conscious and suffering from shock. Yet when it comes to the ID parade, her word is doubted, and she is described as confused or mistaken, unable to make up her mind, or indeed coached by Acott.

Hi Graham

All anyone looking at this case can do is examine, without prejudice, what was actually said by those who gave evidence.

In Valerie Stories case we now have a much better picture of what she said in statements than the jury whose job it was to supposedly sift all of the evidence.

We now know that she didn't believe that the killers name was Jim. We also know that her memory of the man was fading and that she thought that she wouldn't be able to pick him out, just a couple of weeks after the event.

If the jury had known this, coupled with her picking out of a completely innocent man first time out, then I am sure that they would have had a different view of the evidence overall. One cannot blame Miss Storie for the added insult that the police added to the mix by not having Mr Clark available for court. Miss Storie said that Clark did resemble Alphon. So if he resembled Alphon there was no way he could have resembled James Hanratty.

As for Miss Storie being coached by Acott we have the conflicting evidence of the location of the roadworks. Miss Storie changed the location from original statements to the evidence that she gave at the committal and again finally in evidence given at trial until they [the roadworks] were close to Hanratty's parents home to make it seem that Hanratty would have been aware of them.

One must give the absolute benefit of the doubt to Miss Storie so the change of location must have come from Acott and his intelligence men! Yet the roadworks were in fact exactly where Miss Storie had originally said that they were when the killer warned them of them and nowhere near Hanratty's parents home.

Acott even had Harry Hiron's statement read out in court at the trial to make it look as if they stopped for petrol at Kingsbury near Hanratty's home when in fact Miss Storie was adamant that the stop was at the Regent garage near London Airport, because Gregsten only ever bought Regent petrol.

So when Valerie Stories statements and evidence are examined more closely then it appears that Hanratty could not be the killer and Acott has acknowledged her inability to identify the killer, coached her, and massaged evidence to fit Hanratty up.

To paraphrase the great Jean Justice somewhat. Not one fingerprint, not one hair and not one fibre from Hanratty was ever found in that car.

For someone who had been caught doing screwings and car stealing because he left his dabs behind then this is an astonishing fact and the one which I believe proves beyond any doubt that Hanratty was not the A6 killer. Besides he has a cogent alibi supported by nearly a dozen people.

ATB
Derrick

[Derrick]

Hello Graham,
I find it a bit provocative the way you begin your post .....just a thought.You intend, I suppose ,to say,"look,we are on the side of the law here and we can ignore anything you say about say the Matthews report or Foot's or Woffinden's work.Anyway,maybe I am wrong-and I apologise if so.
Having never encountered a case which relied on so many shady characters as witnesses for the prosecution and one sole witness re identification [-who didn't really see the man] -for the account of what took place,I was horrified that a man was hanged for the crime---especially as James Hanratty's alibis in both Liverpool[Mrs Dinwoody]and Rhyl [Mrs Jones/Mrs Walker/Mrs Vincent /Mrs Davies/Mr Dutton and Mr Larman et al were not criminals like those the prosecution had relied on.
I have studied the Hawser report quite carefully [and no doubt you have too] and it is the most slippery piece of argument I have ever read ---just about as full of holes and inconsistencies as the trial itself was and a masterpiece of evasion,ignoring almost every anomaly and inconsistency Judge Gorman pointed out to the jury in his summing up.
Mr Whitaker in 2002 ,takes up the cudgel play vigorously upholding his 'amazing findings' and the lurid story the DNA told him as it appeared to him on the 43 year old piece of knicker cloth.Only thing is the rest of the world wants nothing whatever to do with Mr Whitaker's LCN DNA tests.Too dodgy by half they think, too susceptible to contamination and too controversial for evidential purposes .Still Mr Whitaker must be comforted by the Netherlands and New Zealand who like ourselves have adopted it for evidential purposes .
Like everything else in the case,there is still nothing straight forward , nothing that makes sense ,nothing above criticism, nothing that isn't controversial.

re your point about the gears:Valerie first of all had to demonstrate how to drive the car.Then a second time,show him how to change gear,then a third time reinforce her driving lesson over both the gears and the lights.She never mentions him as being anything other than coolly murderous in the end.Which is exactly how I picture the gunman after the tragic skirmish with Gregsten.

Well said Norma

ATB
Derrick

[babybird67]

i didnt realise...

Besides he has a cogent alibi supported by nearly a dozen people.

ATB
Derrick

...there was a third alibi!

Maybe, Caz, THIS could be the basis of a new appeal?

[Natalie Severn]

I think you'll find I can have it any way I like, Nats. You are the one who wants the situation to change; I'm happy with it as it stands. Hanratty was taken out of society because he was believed to be a danger to it.

I did offer an alternative to Hanratty planting the gun himself (ie France doing it to disconnect himself, his home and his family from the man he knew or suspected had committed this mother of all crimes) but you ignored it, and didn't really deal with why anyone aiming to incriminate an innocent Hanratty would not have put the gun in a much more obviously damning place, where it would quickly be linked directly with him and identify him as a suspect if he hadn't been already. Apart from the risk of going out with the thing, transporting it onto a bus and being seen hiding it, what guarantee was there that even if it was found quickly it would be connected to the man being framed? The police had to have Hanratty as a suspect before they could have connected the murder weapon to him. Bit of a pointless gamble really, with one if not the most important component of the crime.

Why don't you treat yourself to reading up on what William Ewer said in his long long statement in The Sunday Times of 16 May 1971?

some gems for you to consider:

-that around start of September-6 days after the A6 murder , he says in his statement in The Sunday Times , that he saw a man with eyes like carbuncles in the fal a fel cafe in the Finchley Road who he immediately suspected was the man who killed his brother in law on the A6 50 miles away-this was because the man had eyes like carbuncles[but Valerie did not say anything like that,nor did she compose her identikit man showing he had eyes like carbuncles ---and Hanratty did not have eyes like carbuncles]. Mr Ewer says he then followed the carbuncle eyed man to the Flower Shop nearby [ie the one run by Mrs Dorothy Morrell who sent flowers to Mrs Hanratty for J. Ryan on 1st September 1961] and he then telephoned Scotland Yard to say he had found the murderer.
So here is an interesting fact-----Mrs Dorothy Morrell gave Hanratty"s real name to Scotland Yard at the beginning of September 1961! She told the two plain clothes policemen who had come from Scotland Yard about the matter that the man who called himself J.Ryan sent flowers and a card to a Mrs Hanratty of Sycamore Grove.
Read it for yourself,and see that this was a true record by William Ewer.
Truth stranger than fiction stuff---its not US who made this up.It happened.
Finally William Ewer's shop was a stone's throw from the France family who lived in Boundary Road ,so it too was close to the 36 bus!
Nobody actually knows who put the gun on the bus .France may have because he panicked due to the calamity caused by the murder---he may have been the gun conduit throwing blame on his erstwhile fried and not expecting him to be charged because he thought he was in Liverpool.Remember he did go and apologise for things turning out the way they did to Ewer---- a fact --- precious few of them in this rum tale.

In conclusion the police may not have put two and two together about carbuncle eyed man but according to mrs Dorothy Morrell they knew that J.Ryan was James Hanratty on 1st September 1961.And my guess is so did William Ewer.

We must not forget though that the 36 bus runs past Victoria and onto Camberwell and the bus conductress saw dirty scruffy man with a parcel get on the bus and go upstairs at the Grosvenor Hotel in Park Lane [in the early hours of 24 /08/61]---another point at which the 36 bus also stops.

[Derrick]

In conclusion the police may not have put two and two together about carbuncle eyed man but according to mrs Dorothy Morrell they knew that J.Ryan was James Hanratty on 1st September 1961.And my guess is so did William Ewer.

Hi Norma
Of course Ewer knew exactly who Hanratty was prior to the sighting. But I don't believe Janet Gregsten knew anything about it and Ewer used her name to try to cover up whatever involvement he may have had in the A6 murder.

Although I don't believe he instigated it directly, for he would have been very foolish to do so.

I believe he was being blackmailed by Alphon and used freemason connections to stump up Alphon's money and also to help keep Alphon out of the clarts. Alphon was treated with such kid gloves by the courts after carrying out almost constant harrassment of people publicising the case and a couple of physical attacks.

Putting that together with Acott's very lame 12 reasons for believing that Alphon was not the A6 killer makes me suspect that freemason connections were at work. I think, after Acott's 12 points, that even if Valerie Storie had picked him out Acott would have let Alphon go using the excuse of lack of evidence.

The gun being planted on the 36A bus when Hanratty was in Liverpool and the spent cases planted in room 24 by whoever was enough to help fit up Hanratty after Alphon was safely out the picture. Dixie France almost certainly had some involvement in this.

A freemason element may explain why this case is so sensitive to the establishment and why so many documents must stay under wraps until the 2030's, especially those concerning Alphon. If the establishment had anything that showed Hanratty was truly guilty, then we would have heard about it already. The CCRC investigation found that Hanratty had been the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice but the Court of Appeal had made its mind up long before the hearing actually took place.

Derrick